Dying Flames
by PalmTreeBlood
Summary: ASHES TO FLAME- read that story first, then this one. Be sure to read the Authors Note. Also, this is VERY philosophic, so just read very slowly. Thanks!


Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is J.R.R. Toliken's. *Sigh*  
  
Authors Note: Directions: (Shake well before opening.) Don't skim and read to some really sad or depressing music, like Gollum's Song or And Then I Kissed Him from the Pearl Harbor soundtrack.  
  
*  
  
*  
  
*  
  
*  
  
Eruanne's sight had failed her; colors drowned in a whirlpool before her eyes.  
  
Gold. Blue. Green.  
  
Wait. She knew those colors; at least. She knew that blue, she would never mistake that blue again for as long as she lived. It was like falling into a sapphire well, the closest you can travel to an ocean without moving a step. It was compassion, it was joy, it was sadness and it was hope. With a heave, she wrenched a pale arm up, trying to touch that blue. Someone uttered a sob that tore at her ears. Hands like iron bands gripped her shoulders, but she had no voice to raise in protest.  
  
She was dying; she knew that much. Every second that passed was one less that she had less to live. In a strained motion, her mind tried to encompass everything in the moment.  
  
Leaves dropping through the slanting sunbeams, lemon on the forest floor.  
  
Birds calling, dark shapes rising into the sky.  
  
Outlines of twigs, pressed against the fabric of her clothing.  
  
Sweat on his face. Eyebrows furrowed, eyelashes dewed with tears.  
  
The swaying motion of his hair, dropping around her in a veil of gold.  
  
The movement of his chest.  
  
His eyes, the blue she once drowned in.  
  
His lips.  
  
His cheeks.  
  
Him cradling her in his arms.  
  
Him.  
  
Eruanne had made her peace with Nature, the Valar and her killer and now accepted her fate. She would be leaving Legolas alone in Middle earth, and that fact tore at her heart, doubling, tripling the pain her body already felt. But in that matter she was helpless, for the decision of life or death had been made for her, and now Eruanne was quiet.  
  
"Fanuilos! A Hiril lim!  
  
A Bereth-thar ennui Aeair!  
  
A Galad nain in riniad  
  
Vi galadhremmin ennorath!  
  
"Gilthoniel! A Elbereth!  
  
Lim hin lín, ar celair thûl lín.  
  
Fanuilos! Le Linnatham!  
  
Vi haedôr athan i Aearon!  
  
"Elenath vi Penanor În  
  
Ah sílacam na he gellin,  
  
Vi gwaeronbairth celair ar lim  
  
Cenim gwaloth celevon sí!  
  
"A Elbereth! Gilthoniel!  
  
Rîn broniant an northad sí,  
  
Vi haedôr di remmin gelaidh,  
  
Na 'ilgaladin bo Aeair.  
  
"A Elbereth! Elin síla!  
  
Sílar am râd na vedui!  
  
Reviatham athan Aearon  
  
Awarthatham pain echannem.  
  
"Nae! Man echannem pelitha!  
  
Bair min, dannathar an lith.  
  
Lammath min ú-bannathar vi  
  
Ennorath vi endrainn teli!"  
  
Gilthoniel! Tirim an le!  
  
In Belain ú-cerir cared.  
  
Naergonon gwathra râd mín!  
  
Ù-derim! In cair reviar!  
  
I Mithaear faltha sen daw.  
  
In eilphgair darthar an mín.  
  
In lamath Tol-Ereb cenir!  
  
In cair reviar! Ù-derim!  
  
Tharaearon bo ennui hebaid  
  
Elin sílar am Tirion!  
  
Alae! In haeron fain nallar!  
  
Ethuil teli an edain!  
  
Nae! Iavas teli an min!  
  
*  
  
The clear voice of Legolas singing pierced the fog that clouded around her senses and she lay frozen, her thoughts focused on him and only him. Death unhurriedly crept into her mind, leisurely but unstoppable the sound of it footsteps echoing in her brain. In a desperate attempt to stave it off she concentrated her thoughts on Legolas, the golden-haired angel bending over before her. She did not fear death, for it was part of them as they were created, it was part of all things, for if they did not die themselves, such as the elves, everything else around them faded into silence while they watched in childlike curiosity and grief. All she craved was a few last moments with Legolas; all she wanted was to feel the love for her radiating off in with almost perceptible warmth that was what she needed.  
  
Yet death was unbeatable, invincible and slowly the sound of his singing faded from her ears, replaced by a black silence, the last phrase she heard, and the phrase that she would remember for all her life after this one, in the halls of Mandos was,  
  
Nae! Man echannem pelitha!  
  
Bair min, dannathar an lith.  
  
Lammath min ú-bannathar vi  
  
Ennorath vi endrainn teli!  
  
(Alas! What we made shall wither!  
  
Our fair dwellings, they shall turn to dust,  
  
And our voices shall not be heard in  
  
Middle-Earth in Ages to come.)  
  
In a split second of her remaining time, her mind sifted through all her memories, picking out the ones that she wanted to remember. It was like sifting through a pile of rocks- jewels could be dirty or hidden. Flashes of remembrance came to her nearly sightless eyes.  
  
The feeling of wind of her face, as her hands stung from holding on tightly to the rope that looped down the boat's side. The curving, dipping motion of the boat seemed natural to her, as natural as breathing. Dark brown strands of her hair found themselves wound around her neck, sticking to her mouth. With a careless hand she dislodged them, eyes looking out beyond everything. The seawater foamed in a dark cobalt blue, the salty water edged and speckled with delicate white foam. It was more than just water; surely, it had to be. Watching its swaying movements reminded her of the one time she had snuck into the carved cabinet where her father had kept his spirits. Drunk. Dizzy with the hypnotic motions. She scooped up some of the water- in her hand it was so clear she could see her lifeline through it, but in the great expanse surrounding her it was sapphire blue. She sniffed- the smell might be considered rank to some, tinged with salt and seaweed- but to her it was finer than the best perfume she had ever encountered . . . it was real, alive and to her . . . that was what mattered.  
  
*  
  
The first time she saw Legolas. It was in the woods, she was clothed in a sensible brown gown made of a stiff fabric- it barely skimmed the tops of her softly tanned leather boots- perfect for woods walking. She heard a noise ahead on the path, and her light footsteps quickened on the twig- littered path. Rounding the bend she saw a flash of gold, gleaming in a shaft of light. Her eyes widened as they took in the long, lean form of the prince, walking unconcernedly along the path. A twig cracked beneath her foot, a small, quiet and perfectly natural sound for the forest but nevertheless, was enough to make him turn around. He took a small glance at her through his blue eyes- a blue so vibrant that even at a distance she could tell what color they were, they were like pieces of the sky. He raised an eyebrow and stepped gracefully off the path, she caught the flash of a metal knife hanging from his waist, and he was gone. She would not see him for a long time.  
  
*  
  
The swirling gray clouds arranged themselves in curious patterns- spreading their gift of gloominess and darkness over the sky, drenching the palace's ground in shadow. Lightening lanced across the sky, making the air shiver and crack. Its white-hot fingers found the branch of a tall, proud tree. The fingers made contact. The acrid smell of burning wood and smoke filled the air as the flame-filled branch fell to the ground- leaves burning to nothing. The earth shook with the rolling thunder, vibrating underneath her small, quick feet. She grabbed for the table, but missed. Her elfin grace had not been bequeathed to her yet; her feet were as clumsy as a man's still. She landed hard on arms and legs, hair sprawled in disarray.  
  
*  
  
*  
  
Such curious things that she remembered, and many more. How could these be the images that last came to mind? What importance did they hold? She could understand why her mind brought her the image of her first meeting of Legolas, but the sea and the storm?  
  
The answer came to her on blessedly quick wings. There was the sea, the earth, the fire and the air. It was the elements of the world that she lived in. It wasn't about richness of the boat she rode, or the fact Legolas had been walking through the forest, or that she had fallen on the wood floor, limbs badly bruised.  
  
It was Nature's gift. Somehow, in the whirlwind of sadness and death, time slowed for a moment and she became, for just an instant the world that she was given to from her creator.  
  
Though her position was lamentable enough by anyone's standards, her heart broke for others, not herself. In the soundless, sightless void of her mind she realized with both infinite sadness and incredible joy that she would never leave the world that gave her life, but the elves would leave her behind. They were the ones to pity, left with nothing but memories.  
  
So as her spirit grew soft, white wings her face twisted into an expression of the deepest loneliness. An emotion that was a deep slow ache; a despair that all elves felt with their mortality, a grief that went deep down to the bottom of the heart. Her spirit spread its wings, launching itself into the sky. Higher she flew, almost into the sun itself, Mandos was near, but her soul was still troubled. Glancing back to the land that was so far below her; a gleam of gold.  
  
It could have been anything, perhaps a lost treasure of the dwarves, or a piece of rock glistening in the midday sun, but she didn't want to think of it like that. She wanted to believe it was really Legolas. She wanted her last sight of Middle-earth the person who gave her his heart and took hers in return.  
  
*  
  
It was fitting, the one person who gave her love in life, would now give her peace in death.  
  
*  
  
*  
  
*  
  
Legolas hunched over her empty body, her eyes held no life in them anymore. Slowly, he lifted his hand from where it gripped her shoulder, and the other from where it lay tangled her hair. For a long moment he stared, blue eyes wide and wild. His chest barely moved up and down. Legolas backed away, face as featureless as a plain of snow, for this was not his Eruanne.  
  
She was gone, she had passed to Mandos and there was nothing he could do. Slowly raising his head, Legolas resembled a golden-maned lion in his prime, but there was something broken in his aura. His eyes were strangely blank and broken as he looked around the world. He was lost.  
  
*  
  
He wandered aimlessly in the forest paths until sunset, just blindly walking forwards, drifting in the wind. But what was the point of making choices anymore, even ones so tiny as to what path he should take, right or left? She was not here anymore, she would never be here. She had gone to a place beyond his reach as warrior, a prince and an elf.  
  
She. He could not bear thoughts to form her name, though a voice whispered it endless in a place he could not reach. Eruanne Eruanne Eruanne. why couldn't it stop? Hadn't he been tortured enough? Why must he hear her name over and over? Isn't enough that he held HER when she was dying?  
  
Endless questions ran through his brain, bewildering him. His sight faded into blackness, even when he raised his eyes to the setting sun, it still remained night to him. Slowly, scarves of color wove their way into his vision, brown, cream, pink. Twisting and shimmering they settled into a shape. Eruanne's kind eyes shined with love as they looked at him, her lips twisted in a smile of sad and sweet surrender.  
  
"No." Legolas said quietly in desperation, blinking his eyes to rid them of this picture, turning his head away from the only person he truly loved. But the picture was in his mind and followed him every way he turned.  
  
"NO!" He shouted to an empty forest, "You cannot befuddle my mind like this, I am the Prince of Mirkwood," he shouted in desperation, like a wild animal cornered against rocks. The haunting image drove him to his knees, forgetting the fact whichever person bewitched him to see this image, did not care about his title. "Prince of Mirkwood." He cried again, but softer and quieter, speaking more to his hands that where cradling his face, than to anyone else.  
  
*  
  
*  
  
*  
  
Birdsong filtered through his ears, along with the cheerful babbling of a nearby stream. He looked to the west, watching silently as the sun gave its last rays to his world, it was sunset, the ending of one day and the beginning of the next. In some ways this was her day, and now the sun way setting before his eyes. Legolas knelt down on the forest floor, fingering a planting of a tree. He fingered the spring green leaves that dwarfed the stem.  
  
"I have seen it," He confided quietly into the trees waiting ears, "I have seen your life, from the tiniest seed that within you began until you spring into the reaching boughs of a giant." He rose blindly, head fixed on the sky. "I have seen the life of all things in my days on Middle earth, all things from the Misty Mountains to the smallest fledgling bird and now I am complete. Like the world has done before and done today, I will pass into the twilight of my life, watching as night comes for all elves, just as it dawns before man."  
  
His heart broke further with every word he said, yet his mind healed. What he was about to do was laid out in a concise plan of death, he laughed bitterly, what a macabre thing to do, plan your own death.  
  
His death was to be the slow and hard one of Grief, a path that was not chosen by him today, but chosen the day he placed his heart and life into another's hands and loved them with a passion that only death can match. And now, in answer to that pledge death would take him and his body, into the next life to be with the one he loved. He would begin to fade everyday, more and more of his mind journeying to the next world to be with her, though his body would stay behind. And when the last traces of him, his essence, his mind, his being and his soul left, Middle-earth would proclaim him dead.  
  
He saw this, like he saw the life of all things and did not accept or rejoice at his fate. What he saw would remain with him alone, for if he never confided his thoughts to any men that ever lived, or any elf that had not loved they would scorn his thoughts, branding them as folly. Men, simply because their allotted time was so short, the clung to every shred of life, shredding away the beauty that made life so worth living. They counted success in material things, things that they could touch, handle and boast over to their friends. Concrete things.  
  
Most younger elves thought this way to, having nothing to compare the material fruits of this world against except their parents' love which is usually hidden deep within the heart, not to be discovered until many years have aged themselves against the world.  
  
All other elves however, would look upon him with eyes full of great sadness and understanding. They had tasted the sweet ambrosia of love and knew what it was worth. Elves, who where occupants of places of beauty, mystery, danger and power knew that the things that mattered where not things you could touch with your fingers, or see with your eyes. But it was the things you felt within.  
  
*  
  
*  
  
*  
  
*  
  
A/N: You are probably all wondering WHAT THE HECK IS THIS. Well, sorry to say. this is the ending of Ashes to Flame. You see, I had all this righteous crap about finally doing a story and finishing it.updates being regular and all that stuff.. BUT a little thing called ME got in the way and I chickened out. Sorry. The plot was for her to get in this big fight with Legolas because she though he wanted her to be his mistress, or as she put ("You want me to be your whore, Prince?" Her voice was icy, and she looked directly at him, eyes burning with righteous anger.)  
  
And then the Council of Elrond, which she overheard and she falls in love with Legolas (blah blah blah) and then when Legolas is on the quest, with a promise to return to her a spell that Sauron/Wizard Sidekick casts goes astray and Eruanne basically going through evolution backwards.or to put it in English.she is going from the horse-talking, beautiful (all elves are, its not a MS), elegant elf to a human. She loses her ears, her hearing, sight, and etc. So when he comes back, she looks the same but she only has a couple months left to live because all those years she lived as an elf are accumulating. And then at the end.she dies. I've always been a sucker for angsty endings.  
  
Anyways, since I don't have the balls (that's figuratively and literally) to finish, if one of you writers wants to GO AHEAD AND BE MY GUEST. Just be sure to include that the plot line was by me, and I'll be happy. But could you also tell me? My IM is lobsterpot34.thanks.  
  
Well, yours in cowardliness..  
  
Pearls  
  
*  
  
*  
  
TRANSLATION TO ELVISH SONG  
  
Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!  
  
O Queen beyond the Western Seas!  
  
O Light to us that wander here  
  
Amid the world of woven trees!  
  
Gilthoniel! O Elbereth!  
  
Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath!  
  
Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee  
  
In a far land beyond the Sea.  
  
O stars that in the Sunless Year  
  
With shining hand by her were sawn,  
  
In windy fields now bright and clear  
  
We see your silver blossom blown!  
  
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!  
  
We still remember, we who dwell  
  
In this far land beneath the trees,  
  
Thy starlight on the Western Seas.  
  
O Elbereth! The stars shine!  
  
They shine upon the path at last!  
  
We shall sail across the Sea  
  
Forsaking all we made.  
  
Alas! What we made shall wither!  
  
Our fair dwellings, they shall turn to dust,  
  
And our voices shall not be heard in  
  
Middle-Earth in Ages to come.  
  
Gilthoniel! We look to you!  
  
The Valar cannot undo what is done.  
  
Great lament shadows our path!  
  
We cannot stay! The ships set sail!  
  
The grey sea foams this night.  
  
The swan ships wait for us.  
  
The echoing voices in the Lost Isle call us!  
  
The ships set sail! We cannot stay!  
  
Across the Great Sea on Western Shores  
  
The stars shine upon Tirion!  
  
Behold! The distant clouds weep!  
  
Spring comes for men!  
  
Alas! Autumn comes for us. 


End file.
